When some people heard I was working on a book called The Gospel According to Bob Dylan, they asked, “Are you serious?” These people don’t see Dylan as a religious artist.
I have in mind those with only passing exposure to Bob Dylan’s life and work who may be surprised to discover there is anything here of interest to religious studies. They may not share the objections of those concerned that either religion or Dylan are treated with inappropriate levity, but they might raise an eyebrow and ask what one has to do with the other.
Let me explore the reasons the religious dimensions of Bob Dylan’s work are so fascinating and deserving of close attention. When people discover my interest in biblical and religious themes in Bob Dylan’s writings, they often ask a familiar question: So, what does he believe? Interestingly, this does not happen with other artists I write about on occasion, whose work also includes
conspicuous religious subject matter.
Heavy metal music, for instance, typically draws on religion for its lyrics and symbols, yet most people do not confuse Ozzy Osbourne’s stage persona with his personal beliefs. He might wear crosses, call himself the Prince of Darkness, and sell “unholy water” at concerts, but this does not usually lead to speculation about the presence or absence of religious orientation in his private life. Here audiences readily appreciate that the fusion of music and religion is simply part of the genre in question, as is also the case with country music.
In some other instances, a musician’s personal beliefs are obvious enough that speculation is unnecessary. Most know that Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) is Muslim, that George Harrison is Hindu, that Alice Cooper and Sinéad O’Connor are Christians. All of these musicians share their religious views openly in interviews, various writings and their music.
George Harrison’s Hinduism is transparent in his book I, Me, Mine and the albums All Things Must Pass (1970) and Brainwashed (2002), for example, which bookend his solo career. Alice Cooper announced his conversion to Christianity with the album The Last Temptation (1994) and speaks openly about his faith journey in the autobiographical Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock ‘N’ Roller’s 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict. Sinéad O’Connor’s faith (schismatic Catholic) is evident in her album Theology (2007), while Yusuf Islam’s An Other Cup (2006) and Roadsinger (2009) are beautiful, clear statements of his Muslim faith.
In each case, these artists sing and speak openly about their spirituality—no ambiguity, no need for relentless questions and speculation. In far more cases still, audiences realize religious terms, phrases and images serve artistic ends and do not express any personal positions on matters of faith. The use of language connected to organized religion and sacred texts is ubiquitous in popular music, but most listeners know instinctively that a gap exists between singers and the songs they write.
Somehow, the situation is different with Bob Dylan; fans and critics often connect this artist to his art. One reason they do so may be the cryptic nature of many of his lyrics that gives the impression something more is going on below the surface, which
in turn invites a search for deeper meaning.
He nurtures this sense of mystery: “All the great performers that I’d seen who I wanted to be like…all had one thing in common. It was in their eyes. There was something in their eyes that would say… ‘I know something you don’t know.’ I wanted to be that kind of performer.” The presence of ambiguity in songs tends to make a biographically based strategy of interpretation attractive to many who hope clues useful for interpretation may present themselves.
When asked about Dylan’s religious beliefs, my answer is always the same. I do not know. Ultimately, it is none of my business. All I can say with any confidence is that religious language is everywhere in the songs, which accounts for my academic interest in the subject. The presence of religious content in song lyrics, however, does not necessarily reveal anything about the personal life of the one who wrote them, and we should be cautious about making the leap back and forth from songs to biography and from biography to songs.
At the same time, when on the rare occasion Dylan speaks about his personal beliefs, he tends to be vague, often pointing toward music rather than organized religion as a source of spiritual sustenance: “I find religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else…I don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists…I’ve learned more from the songs than I’ve learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.”
Notice that he finds religiosity and philosophy in the music; he does not put it there. Whatever we think of Dylan’s religious views, it is clear that he links spirituality with music. He makes comments to this effect quite often: “When Frank [Sinatra] sang that song [“Ebb Tide”], I could hear everything in his voice—death, God and the universe, everything.”
Woody Guthrie thinks of songs in much the same way: “I sung out by myself…All kinds of hats, caps, sweaters and dresses stood around tapping shoes against the concrete, patting hands, like getting new hope out of old religion…”
For a songwriter who delights in evading questions and who guards his privacy so fiercely, it is almost certain that our curiosity about Dylan’s personal beliefs will remain unsatisfied. Maybe someday he will speak openly about his spirituality in a way analogous to artists such as George Harrison and Yusuf Islam. I would listen with interest to such an interview should it ever hit the wires, but I doubt it will.
Even Dylan’s gospel songs and stage sermons of the late 1970s and early 1980s are ambiguous to a degree. His earnestness and sincerity are not in question, but we should remember that much of the material he relayed to audiences at that time was not fully his own. Instead, he passed along a received discourse, one echoing the church’s dogma and the writings of particular teachers (such as the bizarre eschatological ideas of Hal Lindsey).
Consider these words from a concert sermon: “I read the Bible a lot; it just happens I do. It tells you specific things in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, which might apply to these times here. Because Russia is going to come down and attack the Middle East; it says this in the Bible. I’ve been reading all kinds of books my whole life, and I really never found any truth in any of them. These things in the Bible, they seem to uplift me and tell me the truth.”
Here and elsewhere, Dylan modeled his speech and demeanor at this time according to certain conventions of gospel music performance. This is what gospel musicians do. They proclaim the old, old story in modern times. They pass along the Christian teachings they received, just like St. Paul himself: “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received” (
Christians and Christian musicians repeat and preserve the basic elements of the gospel tradition as they receive it, without innovation. Does it follow that Dylan believed or understood all aspects of this new teaching? He certainly did not tether himself to this one form of religious discourse (Christian fundamentalism).
As he moved on from gospel music and its various conventions, his religious quest brought him into new conversations, including associations with Lubavitcher Hasidism, a sect of Orthodox Judaism.
Bob Dylan’s music moves many listeners out of themselves, out of their “habitual, common-sense world.” Falling under his dancing spell, we end up chasing the shadow he sees. This escape from the common-sense world leads a few listeners to something
approaching religious meaning.
Their thoughts might turn, no matter how far removed from organized religion, to the idea of justice, to the idea of a divine being, to the idea of reliable, meaningful, enduring love. The music creates space for such concepts, pressing at the walls of our habitual patterns of thought, allowing us room to contemplate new possibilities. One writer goes so far as to call Dylan a “musical theologian.”
Pop culture provides forms of spiritual encounter that the consumer helps construct. As noted above, the religious significance of Bob Dylan does not lie entirely in the man himself, or even in his music and lyrics. He is not a systematic theologian or self-conscious religious teacher, presenting a single, consistent, fully expressed and nuanced worldview or religious perspective.
Rather, religious meaning and insight—the gospel according to Bob Dylan—spring from the engagement of the individual fan with his art. If we find answers in Dylan, it is because we are already asking particular questions. If we find comfort or meaning in the songs, it is because we are looking for ways to articulate pre-existing conditions. We integrate his words and sounds with the ideas, knowledge, needs and assumptions we bring to the music.
This, in my view, is why the religious material in Bob Dylan’s songs and writings matter, why it warrants close examination along with the songs of other musicians who deal with religious questions. Bob Dylan’s imaginative work provides an artistic world in which to explore our own ideas and questions about religion.
Michael J. Gilmour is Associate Professor of New Testament and English Literature at Providence College in Manitoba, Canada. He is the author of Gods and Guitars: Seeking the Sacred in Post-1960s Popular Music and editor of Call Me the Seeker: Listening to Religion in Popular Music.
This article is excerpted with permission from The Gospel According to Bob Dylan: The Old, Old Story for Modern Times ($15, Westminster John Knox Press), © Westminster John Knox Press, February 2011.
